Pen to Paper
by Fredrikness
Summary: Kairi is trying to impress a guy. Axel is trying and failing to get Roxas. It's all Kairi's fault. If only Tidus were just that one bit closer to the tip of Kairi's fingers. AxelxRoxas and some SoraxRiku somewhere along the lines, too.
1. Chapter 1

Hey guys!

Yep, I'm back, whether you like it or not. But, bad news... I got no reviews! D; Why? WHY! I feel sooooo unloved!

Anyways, Sorry if this one's crap. It's just an idea and if you guys like it, I will continue. But I can't know what you guys think of it if you don't review. So, please, review?

Thanksss...! :D

* * *

Lightly glossed lips pursed. "That's stupid." They opened, and the girlish voice that came out pronounced those words sceptically.

A pen then clacked softly, in a ragged beat, against those lips, the pen getting sticker with every swing. "This whole _thing_ is stupid," the voice says, and the lips move again.

Suddenly the body owning the lips is shoved to the right, and the lips open to let the voice cry out with shock. "Ahh, guys!" said the voice. "What do you think this is?"

Laughter. "Give it up, Kairi, you know you're gonna suck."

Lips grimace. "There's no proof of that. I haven't even started yet."

"The fact that you've been sitting there for fifteen minutes and haven't started _is_ proof, Kairi." A lower voice spoke this. The lips that opened for that voice are constantly tickled by silver hair. The lips don't like it, but they are lips, so they bare it. Just.

"_Riku_," whined the voice, and the lips pointed outwards while the voice dragged out the 'u'. "Sora's already being a bum. Stop being so... So _right _and help me out."

The lower voice sighed. "Fine. But only the start."

* * *

Kairi and Selphie Tilmitt were both very preppy for their age. Kairi was fifteen, shoulder-length red hair and large purple eyes.

Selphie was fourteen and very short for her age. Her hair was parted in the middle at the front, with a fringe somehow poking out between it all, and a long fishtail hung at the back.

Kairi hated the fishtail – she was always teasing Selphie about it, too.

They were great sisters, loved each other, hardly ever fought. They were so similar in nearly everyway. Sporty, funny, gorgeous, great at Maths, bad at English, it was all the same.

And they both _loved_ guys.

There was this guy, Tidus, that Kairi had just before taken a liking to. He was friends with Sora, because _everyone_ was friends with Sora, and Kairi had used that to her advantage.

She wanted to know what kind of girls Tidus liked. Sora happily did his job, but it was the results that sucked.

"Girls? Oh, yeah, I want a girl who's smart. A girl who will laugh at me when I get something wrong, and give me a hint in Math, but not enough for me to actually know the answer by then. I want someone who's accomplished something, someone makes up for everything that I'm not in life. Almost like that when we're together, our talents and strengths make us one person. Yeah... One person, sort of. It's hard to explain to a twerp like you."

Very deep words from Tidus, but their meaning was lost to Kairi. What was Tidus on about? That wasn't Kairi!

And so, that was how Kairi became determined to write a book.

Sora lay on Kairi's bed, on his back, with his feet scraping up and down the wall and his head hanging off the side. "Boring," he muttered.

Riku sighed. It had been not even a minute since they had persuaded Riku to join, and Sora was already bored.

"Sora – shut up. Kairi – focus." Riku's voice was sharp, and both of them blinked before hurriedly straightening out (in Sora's case, he just rolled over and laid attentively on his stomach).

"Now," said Riku, trying to ignore how expectantly they were both looking at him. "We need a beginning. How are we going to begin?" He looked over at Kairi, and Sora rolled back onto his back, the message that he wasn't in this conversation clear in Riku's actions.

It seemed that Kairi had gotten the message, too. She cleared her throat. "Ahem. Ah... How about Once Upon a Time? That's always good."

Sora snickered at this. "C'mon, Kairi, not even _Tidus_ is that bad."

Kairi blushed at not only the comment, but also the mention of the blonde boy's name. "Shut up. I'm new to this."

Riku rolled his eyes. "Obviously. Now, first of all we need characters." He looked at Kairi. "Give me a name."

"Boy or girl?"

Riku started tapping the pen against Kairi's desk. This was going to be tough. But Riku lived for challenges. "Doesn't matter, just pick a random name."

Kairi pursed her lips. "Hmm... Alex."

"Axel. Perfect." The pen kept tapping.

"But I said-"

Riku sighed. "It doesn't matter what you said." Tap, tap. "I'm trying to make the names cooler; do you have a problem with that?"

The look of influence on Riku's face made Kairi gulp. "N-no, Sir."

Riku grinned. "Cool. Now," he looked over at Sora. This kid needed to be a part of it somehow. "Name." Tap, tap.

Sora cleared his throat, coming down from the clouds. "Ahh... Robert."

Riku stopped tapping. He needed to think about this. How does someone jazz up a name like Robert? After a moment's thought, it came to him. "Roxas. Good. Now let's get writing. Do you want me to start you off?"

Kairi nodded.

Riku looked down at the paper. It was now time to begin.

_One sunny day in-_

_Once there was a-_

_There lived two-_

Sora sighed. "This isn't working. It's obvious from look on your faces."

Riku jumped. He hadn't been aware that Sora had been standing behind him.

"Give me the pen," said the short boy, and Riku complied, just as amazed as the for-once silent Kairi in the background. Sora never really did any work around people. He aced most of his subjects, but no one had ever seen him in action.

He was especially good at English. Everyone knew, but it was sort of an unspoken thought. Mostly because it just didn't fit the agenda put with a guy like Sora.

Sitting down, Sora cleared his throat. "What's so special about these two guys?" he asked, his voice changed. It was now... Older. More in depth.

Kairi cleared her throat. "Uhm... They're beings on another world?" She knew it was stupid as soon as the words had left her mouth.

"They were friends as kids, but then got separated by a family hatred?" Sora nodded thoughtfully at Riku's idea.

"No!" cried Kairi, and both boys turned to stare at her. "How about they're gay? Because I would much rather love to write about that than anything else."

Riku rolled his eyes. Kairi was so ecchi. "Fine," he sighed. "So for it."

Sora nodded his head. "Okay. I'm on it."

* * *

_In a world like this one, there isn't any room for people that are different._

_If you like different things, act a different way, or like different people, then generally you are referred to as an outcast._

_Roxas liked different people than all his friends. He liked boys. No one knew, not even him just yet, but he will learn it as this story unfolds. _

_Now, the thing about liking boys is that you must be prepared for their lack of caring to your own emotions. Especially if they come from a family like Axel's._

_Axel liked different people, too. He liked the small, cute people that everyone else forgot about. The ones that they just swept their eyes over and didn't look back a second time._

_But Axel looked back a second time. And then a third. And then a fourth._

_Everyone knew about Axel's fetish. He didn't try to hide it. Naive, adorable people. Preferably guys, but Axel wasn't picky._

_But it was when Axel's parents split that things got tricky. His father had run off at around one o'clock on a sunny Monday afternoon._

_Axel knew he should have taken it as a bad omen that morning. He hated the sun. And Monday. But he hadn't, so when he got home from school, he had to pick his mother up off the floor – quite literally – as a shocked and barely aware fifteen year old boy._

_But back to Roxas. He was a cute, naive little kid with an attitude he used to cover up the fact that he was barely even there in the world._

_He acted tough, but underneath he just wanted to be taught. Taught how to love, how to feel, how to fill that empty void he could feel in the world somewhere._

_But he wasn't going to learn any of that yet. Because it was not quite five in the morning, and Roxas was too busy yawning and rubbing his eyes to focus on all of his inner hopes and dreams._

_

* * *

_

"Whoa, Sora, you are so good at this!"

Sora came back down from where his head had gone up to. For a while it had just been him and the story. Looking back down at the piece of lined paper, he saw the familiar writing neatly written on the lines, perfectly straight.

You wouldn't think that Sora would be neat and talented at writing. You would think he was would be messy and imaginative, a little too creative – so much so that it just ended up as scribbled gibberish.

But no, he was talented. He just didn't flaunt it off to the world, like Tidus and Wakka did with their Blitz ball.

"Can I keep writing now?"

Riku and Kairi laughed. They didn't know Sora had liked writing this much. "Go for it," said Kairi. "Gets me out of writing, anyway."

While Riku glared at Kairi for that comment, Sora went back to the imaginary world, and tried to create more of a sum up to Roxas and Axel's back stories.

* * *

_And while Roxas was getting out of bed and putting on a loose, cream coloured t-shirt, a seventeen year old Axel was passed out on the couch – lying in an awkward position with his legs hanging over the back of the couch, his head on the arm, and his arms both drawling over him to hang loosely on the floor._

_There was a bottle of vodka on the ground, placed just underneath one of Axel's left knuckles, and it was obvious to any outsider that Axel had been holding it as he had dozed off into his uncomfortable sleep. _

_In any normal house, Axel's mother would have come out and jerked the poor boy off the couch, and then he would have been in trouble. But no, his mother was upstairs, just as drunk, in the arms of her girlfriend of seven months._

"I need names," Sora said, and it was obvious that Sora's head was still in with the story. "Give me his mother's name, and his mother's girlfriends name."

"Uhm... Leila and Miki."

Sora grinned. "What does Axel look like?"

It was kind of scary, Kairi decided, as she looked at Sora. He was there, physically, but he had this dazed look in his eye that made him look sort of ravenous.

Riku cleared his throat. "I drew a picture, actually, just then. Sorry that's it's so rushed – it's all I could do in ten minutes. I drew Roxas, too."

Sora took the paper, and something in his head told him that he needed to concentrate. As he looked down at the paper, he grinned. "Yes," the brunette boy said. "This is perfect. Except..."

He turned around, and leaning back, took the pencil from Riku's hand. Then leaning forward again, he put the paper on the desk and stared at the paper.

"We need to make Axel more... Unique. Hmmm... Ah! How about-" He drew one star tattoo beneath each of his eyes.

"No," said Kairi. "How about diamonds?"

Sora considered it, and looking down, saw that that matched Axel perfectly.

Erasing the stars, he replaced then with two small, shaded in diamonds, and grinned. "Perfect."

* * *

_Leila looked alot like her son. So much that people normally took her to be his daughter or little sister._

_Axel was tall and lean, with long spikes of cherry red hair that were constantly dyed but somehow managed to look natural on the exceptional teen. He had wide green eyes that everyone thought were adorable, but would never say because Axel was known not only for sleeping around, but also his strong backhand._

_Leila had kept the natural black hair, large green eyes and pale skin that both she and Axel had bore since they were born. She liked the way she looked – but she would never stop Axel from improving himself if that was what he wanted. She was gorgeous, and was often told by men people at many different clubs._

_And so, that was why they were just 'Axel' and 'Leila' to each other. And if anything, Leila was the daughter of the household. Not that Axel was that mature, either._

_His thin waist, wide green eyes and flirty attitude, often had him at the attention of the girls, and even some boys._

_But Axel wouldn't have any of that. He didn't want to be easy. He wanted something confusing and stupid and pointless, but hard and in all senses, rewarding._

_He wanted a dark love that lasted only one night, but would be put on his long, long list of successes. He liked challenges. Anyone who seemed out of reach was seen as a floating chew toy to the dog inside of Axel._

_And he would beg, jump and whine until he got that far-off person into his life, and more importantly, in his pants._

_Roxas just wanted a simple love. He wanted the girl next door, the one he had known since Elementary School, and had never quite realised how pretty she was._

_He had plenty of friends that were girls, and they were all equally pretty. Kairi and Selphie among them, but most of all, Namine._

* * *

"That girl you keep dreaming about?" asked Kairi, and Sora jumped.

He laughed. "Ah... Yeah." Blushing, he scratched his cheek and looked down. "It just feels like she should be in the story."

Riku was sitting on Kairi's bed, his head back and his eyes closed. "Just let him do what he wants, Kairi."

And then Kairi shocked them all. "Can I try writing?"

Sora looked sad for a second, but then he grinned. "Sure!" But still he just sat there.

"Uhm, Sora, why aren't you moving?" Kairi was getting impatient. For some reason, she really wanted to write.

Sora laughed. "Because you're leaning like, way over me I can't move a thing, let alone stand up and get out of a chair."

Kairi blushed. "Oh. Sorry."

Kairi leaned back and Sora stood up, going to join Riku by sitting on the bed. Kairi sat down in the chair, and stared at the words before her.

She had always been sort of jealous of Sora, Riku and Selphie. Selphie was good at acting, amazing, and Sora was such a talented writer. Riku could draw just about anything, but what could Kairi do?

Look good in a skirt.

Wow. Amazing.

She wanted to be good at something, or at least pass.

So, after reading what Sora had written six times, stalling, she put the tip of pen to the lined paper, and took a deep breath. "Here we go," she whispered.

_

* * *

__Namine had blonde hair that flipped around her shoulder fashionably. Her white dress that thin straps and was a little short for Roxas' liking. She had blue eyes and a thin body. She was pretty, to say the least._

_She was quiet and nice and always seemed to know when something was wrong. She-_

"Ahh!" cried Kairi in frustration. "I can't do it!"

Sora slid on the bed a little more, his head touching the ground. He lifted his eyes up and saw Kairi thunking her head softly against the desk. "C'mon Kairi, it's not that hard. Read it out loud so we can hear." That was Sora's way of saying 'I want you to read it out so I can change the whole thing without having to move from this spot.'

And so Kairi read it out. After she was done, Sora looked at her, upside down, in thought. "You're actually not that bad," he told her approvingly. "Keep going."

Because Sora was upside down, Kairi couldn't figure out as easily if he meant it or if he was just saying that so he didn't have to get up. Either way, she turned back around and kept writing.

_She was observant – she noticed things in Roxas, in anyone, that no one seemed to notice themselves._

Huh, thought Kairi. This whole writing thing wasn't that bad.

_Namine made Roxas feel special. Not the kind of special that Roxas dreamed about, but still it was there and for now Roxas was happy with that. _

_Not that Roxas liked Namine. It was just that she made him feel some sort of warmth that Roxas imagined love to be like. _

_Still rubbing his eyes as he walked down the stairs – more tripped, actually – Roxas pushed all the complex thoughts back into that small part of his brain that was functioning at that time of the morning and let the sleepy state drag him all the way to the kitchen._

"Oh my gosh, I'm good!" cried Kairi. "Nearly as good as Sora. Why haven't I ever tried to do my English homework before?"

"Pass," said Riku quietly, and Kairi folded the page into a paper plane and sent it over. Riku caught it without hesitation and unfolded it, beginning to read. He hadn't read any of Sora's part either, so the whole story was new to him.

"You can hardly tell that the person writing has changed," commented Riku and both Sora and Kairi figured that that was all they were going to get from the silver haired boy.

"You're doing great, Kairi," grinned Sora without even reading it.

Kairi blushed. "Thanks." She turned down to her work and began to think of how the story could go.

And as she thought of the endless possibilities, she found herself finally understanding why Sora was so hooked onto this. It was so fun, coming up with your own world. You could create a whole person, all their emotions, all their own life, in a matter of minutes.

Grinning, she put pen to paper and continued.

* * *

_Getting a glass of orange juice out of the fridge, Roxas sat at the counter and thought. His life was pretty normal. He had a loving Mom and Dad, he was the spoilt only child, and he had never really done anything wrong at school, so all the students and teachers loved him._

_He smiled to himself as the bitterness of the orange juice made his tongue tingle sensationally. Life was good. Normal._

_Well, it was until Axel came along._


	2. Chapter 2

Just realised that I've had no reviews for ages. :/

I feel kinda really unloved guys! :O Haha, I have this strange fear that one day I'll put the double space between the paragraphs, but the structure will have changed, and the whole thing will be full of massive, annoying spaces. Weird, right? :3

I don't own Kingdom Hearts or anything, blah blah blah, Square Enix and Disney, yep we get it. I'd ask you to review, but I don't really care anymore. I'm writing this for myself more than anything :D

_

* * *

__Axel would have liked to say that he was a simple guy. He would have liked to say that he was just someone trying to get through life without pain and disappointment._

_Wait, no he wouldn't have. He was Axel._

_Axel would have loved to say he was some drunk-ass seducer who constantly forgot who he was and just went with the flow that God had obviously created for the joy of the ride._

_Which he did. He prided himself in saying that. He was free – no one would stop him. No one _wanted_ to stop him. That was where the strong backhand came into it._

_He had just moved. Only been there four days, didn't have to go to school until the week after. He probably should have started sobering up, getting his reputation in order._

_He had the chance to change. Become a different person. No one knew him here, Destiny Islands was different from Seattle. Completely opposite. This place had scenery, fresh air. The things that often made Axel forget about his past and the bottle in his hand._

_But moving was always the worst time for him. It reminded him why he had to move. Why everything was falling apart. He was so focused on the forgetting that he didn't even realised he still had the spark of a teenager in him, the spark that was willing to change._

_Because the more he tried to forget, the more he remembered. And the more he remembered, the deeper he sunk down into the couch, and the stronger the alcohol became._

_And the more Leila turned her green eyes away from the home wrecker she had become. She had Miki. Her beautiful lilac haired Miki that was kind and patient and everything that she needed. _

_But Axel had no one. Leila used to pride herself in being the mother of the perfect family. A smart kid who tended to go out of the line a bit, but was easily straightened out with a stern talking to from her kind and amazing husband._

_Who had - amazingly - ran away with a tramp._

_But this isn't the time to be looking into the past. The past will get us nowhere in this story. We need to go back to the present._

_It is now eight am and Roxas is rushing to get out the door and to the bus that leaves from his stop in seven minutes._

"_Bye, Mom!" he calls. "Be sure to get some rest, okay? I'll be home at around seven. I'm going out with Namine and Hayner that!" _

_And as Roxas half slips his shoe on and bolts out the door, Mrs Hayt smiles to herself as she closes her eyes to rest._

_Her son, fifteen and already the best boy he could possibly be. She was sick with the flu, and he was looking after her and telling him where he was without her even asking. She worried about him so much, but she knew she didn't have to. He could take care of himself. _

_And closing her eyes, she felt her blocked nose droop as her breathing got shallower and soon she was asleep, her arms folded over her stomach and her legs curled up in a ball on top of a very comfortable mattress._

* * *

"That sounds nice and comfy," Kairi said softly, chewing on her pencil. She thought it looked weird, the pen and then the pencil on the next line, but she didn't care.

She had found that over the next day that she had been constantly thinking of new story ideas, and when she locked eyes with Sora at lunch, their shared smile told her that the brunette boy had his wheels churning too.

Sora was a good friend. He could handle almost anything. He seemed naïve and awkward sometimes, but Kairi suspected that Sora understood at least half the stuff that he furrowed his eyebrows and cocked his head at.

Kairi could tell him anything. He tried to give advice, but often Kairi just left smiling because he had tried. He wasn't the type of guy who could pick someone up off the broken ground. He was fierce about some things, but normally just mellow and just plain ridiculous.

_Sort of like the more childish version of Roxas_, thought Kairi as she got home to a postcard stuck onto her mailbox. She grinned. That was how Sora and Kairi had communicated over the years. A postcard, that way they could talk, no matter where they were.

_I'll be at your house around fourish_, it said. Looking down at her phone, Kairi saw that it was around the time that Sora would call 'fourish'.

Suddenly she felt hands go over her eyes and it was all dark, except for the slits of light she could see between Sora's fingers. She laughed. Sora was so weird sometimes.

"Guess who?" asked an excited voice that was very obviously Sora's. They both knew that it was obvious, but that was the beauty of it.

"Hmm…" said Kairi. "Is it… Riku?"

Sora giggled. "Yep, it's Riku," he said in a ridiculously low voice.

Kairi giggled, too. "C'mon, Sora, let's get inside. It's starting to get cold."

Sora slipped his hands off his face and they both walked inside, chattering about everything and anything that they had seen or heard at school that day.

Clambering down the hallway, they both collapsed. Kairi on her bed and Sora on the ground. After a few minutes, Sora said quietly, "Can I write? I have a good idea."

Kairi grinned, stretching her neck to look down at him. "I knew you were here for that." She laughed. "Oh no, not here to see the beautiful and lovely Kairi," she said in a high voice.

Sora laughed, too. "You know I love you, Kairi, but this story is just so _awesome_."

She grinned even wider and her mouth began to hurt. "I know right!" she exclaimed. "It's amazing."

They were so relaxed. 'I love you' could be said without any awkward feelings, because they knew that no one meant anything more than they let on.

Sora stood up and slid a few steps forward, before crashing his butt into the chair. "Okay," he said, his voice plastered with fake determination that made Kairi giggle yet again. "Let's do this thing!"

And after reading what Kairi had written over that past day, he did.

* * *

_Roxas rocked back on his heels. Turned out that the bus was late. How stupid. He was stupid. He felt stupid. Shocked at that sudden feeling of depression, he blinked and it faded away just as quickly as it had appeared._

_Weird._

_A figure appeared next to him. Black skinny jeans and a black hoodie. Creepy. Roxas stepped a little to the right. Then a little bit more. _

_Axel scoffed silently. It was as if this kid was scared of getting some STD or something. _

_Wanting to shake things up a bit, Axel muttered to the kid, "Hey, how's life?"_

_The kid jumped. He actually jumped. Was he scared that Axel was going to eat him o__r something? Pulling back his hood just a tiny bit, he turned his head and smirked. "Yeah," he said in a low, smug voice. "That's right – the mysterious creep talks."_

_Roxas looked up at the guy who was really starting to scare him. Right. This guy was weird. And where was the bus already?_

"_I got told not to talk to strangers," he said quietly, feeling like more like an immature little kid than he ever had in his life. _

_The hooded figure's smirk got wider, and Roxas blushed. "Get told that by your Mummy, did you?"_

_Roxas' expression drooped, his mood sinking low again. "No. My Dad, actually. A few weeks before he died."_

_Axel dropped his smirk. Oh. Well that wasn't good. "The bus is here," was all he could muster up, and pulling the hood back over his face he got a few coins out of his pocket and wondered if the bus would be cheaper in Destiny Islands than it was in Seattle._

_It was. By about a dollar. Axel hoped this was a good sign, and tried to push away the guilt he felt for making that other chicken-kid mopey. But the blonde guy was all smiles as he stepped onto the bus. _

"_Morning, young man," said the driver in a voice that Axel guessed was supposed to be affectionate._

"_Good morning, Mr Strife," beamed the younger guy as Axel found a seat up the back. It was weird – in Seattle the students had fought over the back seat every day, but all the people on this bus were all crowded up the front, leaving Axel as the only person on that back half of the bus._

_Getting a proper look at the kid as he walked over to sit next to a short, neon blonde haired girl , Axel had to admit he was cute. _Really _cute. No matter how intimidated he seemed, Axel saw some weird spark in the kid's eyes that he felt was familiar somehow. Then it clicked. _

'I used to have that spark, before Dad ran away.'

_Axel spent the rest of the time looking out the window, trying to forget that small realisation that had slipped past all his barriers. _

_

* * *

_Sora shuddered. He always felt weird writing sad stories. He had never really gone through any hardship – never stood out in the rain crying as the one he loved walked away, never thought that maybe what was beyond death was better than his life now.

He had written about both those things, but he could never really feel it. He had Riku and Kairi. He had Namine, in his dreams. She helped him in those rare times when he was depressed about something.

What was wrong in his life? Nothing that he could think of.

But then why were all his stories sad? Sure, this was Kairi's story, but he was writing it, too. And he seemed to be getting into the loneliness of this story much more than he'd like to admit.

He felt... Shaken. Like something had changed inside of him. It wasn't bad – just unfamiliar, and that made him squeamish.

Something clicked in Sora - in his head. A small voice telling him to keep writing distracted Sora from realising any further what this strange curl of anticipation was. He just kept writing – maybe that would somehow unlock that weird feeling.

* * *

_Something was distracting Roxas that day. He didn't know what it was, but it was making him wriggle around in his chair constantly._

_Sound familiar?_ thought Sora, his mind half-bitter with the comment.

_He wriggled so much, in fact, that his teacher sent him to the Nurses Office._

_Great. Now he was going to cop it from every single other Sophomore out there for having 'his time of the month' or something. He didn't like it. At all._

_But it got worse. _

_After ten minutes __of questions and tablets and filling out forms to prove that he wasn't just faking it to get out of class, Roxas fell asleep waiting for the Nurse to come back in from a call._

_And the next time he woke up was when the Nurse, with her bright smile, shook him gently and informed him that it was five minutes until the last bell._

_Groggily stepping outside of the school, Roxas sat on a park bench that was located on the cement just in front of school grounds. _

_That whole day had been stupid. It was the middle of the year, peak time for all his classes to be starting all the major projects – and he spent the whole day snoozing in the Nurse's Office, either unnoticed or just bluntly ignored._

_Didn't they understand that Roxas was close to failing two subjects?_

_The bell rang then, and Roxas jumped up. He knew that Olette and Pence would race each other to the door, and be in the first bulk of people to swarm out the front door and down the steps. _

_Hayner, Namine and Kairi would come out a minute or so after. Grinning as he saw that Pence had won that day, he went to make his way over to the panting boy reeled over himself near the cement entrance._

_Roxas found himself chuckling quietly, before a calm but loud voice stopped him._

"_Bus boy, right?"_

_Roxas turned slowly. Was it...?_

_He sighed, disappointed. Yep. It was that creepy guy, he could tell by the all-black clothing. The guy had his hood down now, and if he had known then that he liked boys, Roxas would have been a saliva fountain in the making._

_Roxas scoffed. "What do you want?" he said defiantly. But something buzzed in the red haired guy's intense green eyes that made Roxas' lower stomach curl like a streamer on a windy day._

"_Hey," said the stalker guy. "How about you come back to my house and I can help you with your homework?"_

_Roxas shuddered. "I don't think I want to 'learn' anything from you." He put two fingers up to make quote marks._

_Axel grinned. "C'mon, kid, I'll teach you Science. You good at Science?"_

_Roxas shook his head grudgingly, damp blonde hair matting into his eyes. _

_Axel's grin widened even further - and although he would never admit it - that made Roxas feel intimidated. "I'll teach you all about the human body. Starting at the ankles-" pale fingers reached out and poked Roxas' stomach, "- and ending right about here."_

_Roxas shook his head, harder this time. "No thanks, I'm right."_

_Axel winked, completely ignoring Roxas' obvious refusal. "If you're lucky, I may even give you a demonstration."_

_Roxas felt slightly sick. Turning around he walked down the street to where he could see Olette and Pence waiting for him. Despite what Roxas had always said before about Olette and Kairi's trips to the mall, carrying a million and one shopping bags seemed like nothing compared to the crazy red-haired guy behind him._

"_C'mon," called out the crazy guy, his words slightly muffled by laughter. "It's better than theory work!"_

_Roxas kept walking, but turned around as he did it so he was walking backwards. He put his hood up over his curling blonde hair and smirked. "I dunno," he called back. "I found that I always learnt more in theory."_

_Laughing at the shocked look on the guy's face, Roxas turned and ran over to the now recovered Pence and the rest of his friends, so excited to be out of that situation that he didn't even notice his hood fall down off his shoulders, and his silver necklace catch on the hood, before slipping and flying off his neck. _

_You don't know what that means at this present time. But maybe you can figure it out if I tell you what happens next._

_Axel watched the kid turned around and run off, narrowly missing a tree. Chuckling, he stepped forward. He wasn't planning to follow the guy; it was just that his bus stop was that way, too._

_Something glinted in the sun, and Axel saw it – but only briefly. He stopped and turned, but he couldn't quite figure where he had seen the glint from._

_Suddenly something snapped under his foot. Lifting up his black shoe, Axel saw a necklace on the ground. Well, two halves of a necklace. Then, remembering, Axel gasped in a completely non-shocked-but-Axel kind of way._

_This was that kid's necklace._

_Oh boy, oh boy, that little blonde guy was _really_ going to kill him big time for this. And even though that would make Axel's game even more entertaining, he didn't like being resented._

_It was fun now, but it would just be pointless if instead of stammers and blushes from the kid, Axel got glares and insults._

_He'd been through that before. It wasn't cool. _

_So... What was he going to do about the necklace? That kid was stubborn, he knew that much, and he would definitely come back and look for it. Axel also guessed that he would be the one to get the blame first, because he was there and Blondie was already unnecessarily suspicious of him. _

_Axel heard a clunk as he started walking again, and he looked down. "Huh," he said quietly to himself. "Turns out it's not just some prissy little necklace."_

_It was sort of like a dog tag, except the 'tag' part on this was larger than normal, and had an engraved message. _

'_Roxas,' it read. 'I know I won't be with you much longer, but remember that I love you more than anyone else in the world. I may not be there in form, but you can always talk to me if you want. I will help you get through life the way I can't now. Love Dad.'_

_Axel whistled and it was a low, hollow sound._

_Crap._

_He'd trodden on what he guessed was one of the only things that that kid had left of his Dad._

_Roxas, eh? That was his name. Thinking back, Axel decided quickly that the name suited the under-sized teddy bear. It was tough on the outside, but if you said it out loud a couple of times it seemed to grow softer._

_Sort of like how Axel knew that kid would be if he just loosened up a little bit._

_

* * *

_"You've been writing for ages, you do know that, right?" Kairi's voice rang loud and clear, and Sora snapped out of it.

He had put the pencil down about three minutes before, and was now looking at the wall, his chin in one hand, the other folded loosely on the desk in front of him.

He nodded, still sort of dreaming. "Yep," he replied. "I like it."

Kairi scoffed. "Well, I do too, and it's my book, so shove it."

Sora laughed, standing up. She had a point. It was then he noticed the drawing of Axel and Roxas pinned up on Kairi's noticeboard.

Something was different about Axel. Sora leaned in closer as he stepped aside and let Kairi sit down. Axel's black t-shirt now had three stripes – one green, one red and one yellow – sketched across his chest and stomach. They were simple, just six thick lines with various colour in between them, but Sora decided he liked the way the green and yellow made his eyes seem more alive.

"Did you do that?" Sora said, wondering if Kairi would answer him.

She did. "M-hmm," she replied. "You're talking about Axel's t-shirt, I assume?"

Sora nodded. "Yeah." He smiled. "I like it, it's nice." But Kairi didn't reply. Sora looked down and saw her brow furrowed, her grip tighter on the pencil . He laughed. "It's not that hard. Just write."

"Yeah," Kairi groaned after a few seconds of silence. "But what?"

"Anything," he answered. He saw Kairi roll her eyes and laughed.

_

* * *

_

Roxas was squished in between Namine and Kairi in the middle seats of the vehicle. Hayner was driving, and Pence was brave enough to sit in Shotgun. Namine was in the back of the van, lying on the damp mattress, completely silent.

_Pence's family had been hippy's back in 'the day' and once Hayner was old enough to get his licence, Pencer's smitten parents had gladly given him the car for free. _

_Sure it smelt a bit crusty and was filled with strange bottles and packaged snacks, but it was tough and drove faster than it looked it would be able to._

_It was also very roomy, too, when you weren't sitting in between too enthusiastic girls who were excited to go into the shoe store and perv on the new guy working there._

"_Oh my gosh!" Kairi gushed. "Isn't he just cute as anything?"_

_Olette sighed, leaning back – Roxas relaxed from his uncomfortable crouch – and sighed absentmindedly. "His green eyes are so dreamy..."_

_An image flashed in Roxas' mind and he jumped. Both Kairi and Olette looked at Roxas, questioning him with their gazes. _

"_You alright, Rox?" _

_Roxas had closed his eyes, trying to figure out why he had seen that image, and so when he nodded at the curious voice he didn't know if it was to Olette or Kairi._

_Those eyes. They were green. But they weren't dreamy. _

_Well, not really. They just made Roxas soften his defensive posture, if only for a second. Like that stalker guy had given up on being all seductive for that moment and..._

_No. Roxas was thinking too deep into things. Maybe that guy made his eyes like that – it would be easier that way to get out of all the trouble Roxas knew that guy got into._

_He opened his eyes, but that didn't make the image go away. It only pushed it further back into his mind. He groaned inwardly. That was going to affect his sleeping habits tonight._

_Roxas heard a yawn, and turned around. Namine had sat up and her mouth was opening into a yawn so delicately cute that it made Roxas' heart grow bigger._

_She was curled in a ball, one arm around her knees and the other rubbing her left eye. "Roxas?" she said quietly, her eyes opening, the sleep slowly but visibly fading away. _

_Roxas looked at her, surprised. "U-Uhm, yeah? What is it, Nami?"_"What is it, Kairi?" Sora sounded worried, but Kairi was fine. Just staring into space, chewing on her bottom lip. Well she had been, until Sora surprised her.

* * *

Sora sounded so much like Roxas that Kairi jumped. Exact wording, except for the name. Now that Kairi truly thought about it for a second time, Sora really was alot like Roxas.

Looking up at the picture, she saw a definite resemblance in Roxas' face that Sora had – the playful smile and that cheeky bite to his gaze.

Shaking that thought away, she nodded. "Nothing," she replied.

She heard her bed squeak. "So you're alright then?" asked Sora.

"Yup," she said with false bravado. "Good as goodly good."

"Hmm..." murmured Sora, but Kairi was already looking down at the notepad in front of her.

_You know, _though Kairi as she put her pen to the paper. _This might actually be fun. _


End file.
